That’s the movie biz for ya: Somebody wins an Oscar for an animated short about a bear, and suddenly everybody’s churning out bear-themed cartoons. Except, this one is feature length, from Japan (anime!), and has dialogue (with English subtitles).

Am not entirely sure why I went to see Beauty and the… whoops, sorry, The Boy and the Beast. Shaking it up a little, I guess? I’m not a big anime guy; maybe I’d see more of the movies if they came to my local theaters more often. I did see a couple of those Miyazaki films: Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle (and Castle in the Sky is still in my queue).

So that was my frame of reference heading into Boy and the Beast. And I quickly thought, this is not nearly as artful as Miyazaki’s work. And is perhaps too much of a children’s tale for me.

But the concept was pretty cool. We’re in the Shibuya neighborhood of Tokyo in the present day, where we meet 9-year-old Ren (not Stimpy_. He’s sad because his mom just died, plus his folks were divorced and dad isn’t around, so Ren runs away. (Say that five times fast.) Through a mysterious alleyway, he soon finds himself in an alternate world inhabited by walking, talking, clothes-wearing animals. This city is much more old-timey-looking, maybe because goats can’t work an iPhone.

Ren, the human boy, becomes the pupil of Kumatetsu, a slobby bear dude who is in the finals to become the city’s new lord. (He renames Ren as Kyuta, because Kyu = 9.) And here I was starting to think, OK, I’ve seen this all before: Unwilling Oscar Madison-type has to adopt some cute brat, throw in some My Bodyguard and Karate Kid, they’ll both end up learning from each other and loving each other, yadda yadda yadda. Would likely be a satisfying but overly familiar underdog-prevails story, perhaps with actual dogs.

Then something kind of groovy happened. One of the characters mentions that a pupil’s training — in the classic art of fighting, but also in life — will last a number of years. So we soon training-montage fast-forward to Kyuta as a 17-year-old, and then things start to get really interesting. He finds his way back to Shibuya, where he meets a girl and searches for his dad. But he’s still able to cross over into downtown Beastville. Will the two worlds collide?

What I liked about teenage Kyuta’s storyline was that it brought many more mature themes into the mix. So we end up with a pleasing blend of ideas: makeshift families, choosing your own path, the joy of learning, friendship, cutting oneself off from emotions, vengeance, Moby Dick, and overcoming the darkness that lurks within us all. The film has a little fun with that concept; in the beasts’ traditional one-on-one battles, etiquette rules the day, and swords must always remain sheathed. And they worry about having humans in their community, because they believe all humans are ultimately consumed by evil.

Add in a few action sequences and some sweet animation, and this is certainly worth checking out. Sorry, no outside pic-a-nic baskets allowed.